


gravel to tempo

by capebretons



Series: got me saying right now [1]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Angst with a Happy Ending, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Making Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 16:45:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8631352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capebretons/pseuds/capebretons
Summary: “Well,” Connor says, after a minute. “Did it hurt?”Dylan’s fighting back a grin, and it’s only because he knows Connor’s about to say something dumb. “When I fell from heaven?” Dylan asks, eyebrows arched dubiously.“No,” Connor makes a face. “When you jumped out of a fucking window.” (Or, sometimes, you fall in love with your best friend.)





	

Okay, so Dylan’s probably going to be late for first period. And that is so genuinely not his fault, okay? It’s not. It’s all Hanny’s, because Noah’s the worst roommate in history, and the administration won’t even  _ listen _ when Dylan complains, because Noah’s dad gave the school a new golf course last weekend, and Dylan’s brother Ryan was accused of arson the year before he graduated, but it had really just been some overheated ramen in the Common Room, it hadn’t been—

So, Dylan’s going to be late.

He’s not running, exactly, more like — aggressive speed-walking? And if he has to shove a freshman out of the way when they’re walking a little too slow, that’s on Hanny, too. God. If Noah hadn’t been out all night in Jack’s dorm, probably planning new ways to ruin Dylan’s life, they might have remembered to set their alarm, and Dylan wouldn’t fucking be here right now. He wouldn’t be leaping over freshmen in a desperate attempt to not get his eleventh tardy of the week, which,  _ how even. _

Everyone’s already in their seats when Dylan finally gets to Econ, and they look at him with mixed disgust and admiration. That’s not unusual. Dylan gets it. He’s got dumb hair and his uniform tie is always a little too loose, but he’s also the kid who raced golf carts around the track at midnight halfway through his junior year, and lost control, and ended up with an astounding forty-five stitches. He’d been hailed as a hero, but all the kids who wanted to get into the Ivies pretty much stopped talking to him. 

(And, well, that included Connor, but Dylan’s trying not to think about that.)

“Mr. Strome,” and Dylan winces, because that’s Mr. Bell, and he’s never been all that sympathetic towards Dylan, and that’s probably Hanny’s fault, too. “What was so important that you had to miss the first fifteen minutes of an Advanced Placement class?”

“Hot date,” he says flatly, which earns a snort from Lawson, which is not a rare thing. Crouser laughs at everything. It’s part of why Dylan keeps him around. 

“Believable,” Eichel mutters sarcastically, and Hanny, who,  _ fuck _ , somehow got here faster than Dylan, and looks better, too.

“I’m serious,” Dylan sniffs, because that’s easier than saying Noah had thrown an entire hamper of laundry at Dylan, screaming  _ GET THE FUCK UP _ , because class was gonna start in a generous four minutes. “His name is Noah Hanifin and he’s in big trouble, because it was his turn to set the alarm, and I  _ guess _ he just wanted a little more time with me.”

“Overslept,” Mr. Bell repeats, nodding as he’s writing the word down on a demerit.

“Not my fault,” Dylan’s gonna stick to that until the day he dies, he thinks, as he slides into his seat in the back row. Other back-rowers include Konecny, which means Crouser sits next to him, and look at that, Matthews got his ass out of bed today. Auston’s got a 4.3 and has been to class maybe four times this year. It’s November.

“The fuck are you doing here,” Dylan mutters to him, getting his laptop out of his backpack. He just fucks around online during this class, because in no world is Dylan studying  _ macroeconomics, _ whatever the fuck that is, in college. He’s gonna do kinesiology and he’s gonna wreck shit.

Matthews shrugs. “I don’t know. Wanted a change of scenery, I guess.” He’s staring at the back of Mitch’s head, which is so blatant and stupid that Dylan actually blushes.

“You gonna do anything about that?” Dylan asks, following Auston’s gaze. Mitch is half-paying attention, pen in his mouth as he stares at the clock. And yeah, once upon a time, Dylan had that same crush. Mitch Marner is beautiful and funny and talking to him makes you feel special. Everybody has that crush.

But then Dylan had watched, in horror, as Mitch chugged a Keystone out of one of his lacrosse cleats on a drunken dare, and Dylan had really only seen him as a friend, after that. A best friend. He’d wanted to be his roommate this year — the shit they could get into,  _ senior year _ — but Connor had requested him first, and, well. Dylan wasn’t going to argue that. Mitch was his best friend, too. It had been the three of them.

Auston shrugs again, dropping his gaze to his notebook. “Probably not,” he mumbles. “He’s going to Columbia, right?”

Dylan shakes his head. “Who the fuck knows. He’s the most flighty, indecisive baby in the world. He has no idea.”

“I got in,” Auston says, more to himself than anything.

“Good for you, man,” Dylan says, because he’s gotta show the support, right? He’d gotten his second rejection letter the other day, from Yale, and he’d had the distinct pleasure of opening it in the mail room, between Brinksy, who got in, and Barzal, who got deferred.

He’s not really surprised that he didn’t get in. He’s got a 3.9 and a 32 ACT, so, he’s not stupid, but he was thinking, if  _ Ryan  _ got in, Ryan with the arrest record, there was no shame in trying. (But Ryan had been VP of the senior class, and had a 4.2, and a 35. He was designed for that place.)

But Ryan had ended up at Northwestern, anyway. He was always gonna follow Tavares wherever he went.

Dylan doesn’t really care where he ends up going. He’s an adaptable kid. Going to boarding school, especially one as competitive as this one, you kind of have to be. You have to adapt to a lot, especially here — your shitty roommate, your shitty roommate’s shittier best friend, and your best friend jumping ship on your ass out of nowhere. Dylan knows how to adapt.

He’ll be fine. He doesn’t have his heart set on being a Harvard man, or wearing a gaudy red Cornell sweatshirt for the rest of his life, or even getting one of those  _ Dartmouth ‘21  _ tattoos like Werenski had, the night he got his acceptance letter.

Dylan will be fine. He’ll move on from this school to a brighter place, and he’ll have Mitch Snapchatting him until Snapchat gets lame, and he’ll never have to see Hanifin’s smug face again, and he’ll be the same kid he was here. He’ll just be a little bit older and a little bit more educated. Which will be fine. It’ll all be fine.

Connor McDavid chooses that moment to turn slightly in his chair, subtle enough that it might be an accident, and glance back at Dylan. Connor’s a front-rower, always has been, but he used to do this enough. Looking back at Dylan, making sure he was following. Making sure he was still there. Dylan always was.

Connor turns back around, too quick, and yeah, Dylan always followed, but Connor stopped leading.

  
  


Dylan’s not sure how he got to be a member of the Knitting Club. It was probably an accident. He was probably dodging some authority figure, trying to escape a demerit or something, and ended up in the AP Stat classroom with Nate Bastian and Mikey McLeod and a few other randoms, listening to acoustic covers of rap songs and discussing pizza rolls. (Dylan should mention that someone always provides pizza rolls for the Knitting Club meetings.) And yeah, his instinct might have been  _ bolt, Strome,  _ but he stayed. He ate a pizza roll or five, and learned what  _ purling  _ meant. And now, knitting is his third-favorite thing in the world, even though he kind of completely sucks at it. Taco Tuesday and lacrosse practice come first and second, respectively.

“Boys,” he says, striding in a cool eight minutes after the commencement of the meeting. There are only six pizza rolls left, which is six less than there would have been if Dylan was ever on time in his life.

“Hey, Stromer,” Mikey says absently, not looking up from his scarf. It’s about four thousand feet long, by Dylan’s estimation, in the school colors. He wears it, unfinished, at every one of Nate’s soccer games. He works on it in the stands during halftime. 

“You ever gonna finish that thing?” Dylan asks, flopping into a beanbag chair next to Jake Bean, because life is pretty sweet sometimes.

“I hope not,” Nate says from his spot on the floor. “I have a theory that he’s gonna break up with me the second he finishes.”

“You’re right,” Mikey smirks, still not looking up. 

“Bullshit,” Alex Nylander snorts. “Nate, you’re looking at your 50th anniversary present.”

“Do you have the receipt?” Nate replies, and the look of complete and utter betrayal on Mikey’s face is enough to make Nate get up from the floor and knee-walk, in the most unattractive way possible, over to kiss his boyfriend. A few needles are thrown at his head, and Dylan knows from experience just how much that hurts if they hit you hard enough.

“Get a room,” Dylan says, but there’s not much heart in it. He likes Nate and Mikey. They’d started the club, the two of them and a few other juniors. And it probably wasn’t really even officially a club, just some friends knitting, but Dylan had suddenly appeared, and nobody really gave him any shit about it.

Nate sits back down, at Mikey’s feet this time. It’s quiet, it’s not much, but it’s something genuine, and Dylan has to look away. 

He’s always loved love. He never got all that grossed out when his parents held hands, or when Ryan talked about how he was going to marry John one day, or when Barzal got wasted the other weekend and talked about his girlfriend’s voice for forty-five minutes straight. That’s good shit, it’s the stuff that makes Dylan happy. He loves love.

When he was really little, he used to dream about the person he’d fall in love with. Boy or girl, he wasn’t picky, just somebody who loved him a whole lot, enough to see past all the dumb stuff. Past Dylan’s bad posture and his weird sense of humor. Someone who was light and whole and felt like coming home. And he still wants that. 

He had that, kind of.

It’s not like Dylan ever really doubted that he loved Connor. He knows he did. He knows what liking someone feels like (thank you, Mitch), he knows what wanting someone feels like (thank you, Jakob Chychrun), and he knows what loving someone feels like. 

Connor was all he could think about, some days.

Dylan doesn’t really feel like knitting today.

  
  


Lacrosse practice sucks, because Crouser forgets his cleats, and the whole team has to run, even though it’s just pre-season. Dylan looks like shit when he runs. He’s fully aware, even without Mitch pointing and laughing at the sweat dripping down his back.

“You suck,” Dylan says, half-heartedly kicking Mitch in the butt as they make their fourth lap around the field. “And you smell bad.”

“Can you believe there was a time when we didn’t get along?” Mitch says sarcastically, but he’s grinning, and he looks gorgeous, even running. It makes Dylan so mad.

“Worst freshman roommate ever,” Dylan shoots back with a grin, because Christ, Mitch was awful. He didn’t clean up or shower or really even  _ talk  _ to Dylan. He had his friends, and Dylan had his, and they were kind of dicks to each other. And then some time in March, they both spent four hours bitching about Eichel, and suddenly they were best friends. And then Dylan liked him, for about two weeks, and then Mitch was suddenly gross, and then there was  _ Connor _ —

Nope. Not now.

“I’m a great roommate now,” Mitch sniffs, haughty. “Ask Davo. I even take the trash out.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re doing  _ what _ ?”

“Fuck you, Strome, why do we even hang out?”

“Because nobody else can put up with you for more than three hours at a time. I’m a charitable man, Marns, what can I say?”

“Not even remotely true.”

“Completely true.”

“Remember when I hated you? We should do that again sometime.”

“For sure, bud.”

And then the whistle blows, and they can finally, finally stop running, and Dylan literally falls to the grass, because he’s dramatic. Mitch huffs out a laugh, and lies down, much more controlled, to join him. Dylan reaches out for Mitch’s hand, and Mitch takes his immediately. They’re both entirely too tactile for their own good, but it works stupidly well for them. Back when they were roommates, when they were actually friendly, Mitch would climb into Dylan’s bed and nap there, until Dylan got back from Knitting Club and crawled in next to him, because it was no big deal. They’re symbiotic like that.

“Wish you were my roommate this year,” Dylan murmurs, because he’s not trying to be funny right now. Mitch never makes him feel like he has to be anything.

“Me, too,” Mitch murmurs, then pauses, considering. “Well, no. I love Davo. He just goes to bed at, like, 8:30 every night.”

“Because he’s sixty-eight years old,” Dylan replies, and it feels too familiar, to be talking about Connor like this. Raw, almost, even though it’s been eight months and Dylan should be over it by now. Dylan should be over it by now. 

“He is, though,” Mitch laughs, and squeezes Dylan’s hand, because he knows Dylan is dying a little bit, just talking about him. And for a moment, his voice goes a little softer, a little kinder. “How are you doing, with all that? You never talk about him.”

No shit, Dylan never talks about it. It burns like hell, just thinking about it. “I’m doing okay,” he says quietly.

Mitch doesn’t look convinced. 

And Dylan doesn’t want to ask, but he does anyway. He closes his eyes. “Does he ever talk about me?”

And Mitch does this thing, where he looks all soft around the edges, and frowns slightly. “I don’t think it’s fair for me to say so.”

“Mitchell,” Dylan says flatly, with as much humor as he can muster, because that answer probably means  _ no _ . “Why must you do me so dirty?”

Mitch grins, but it’s not all there. “Sorry, man.”

“Yeah,” Dylan sighs. “Me, too.”

  
  


To no one’s surprise, Jack is in Dylan’s room that night. To Dylan’s surprise, Noah is not.

“What the fuck,” Dylan says from the doorway, “are you doing?”

“Waiting for your roommate,” Jack says, bored, not looking up from his phone. “You know. The one you had a date with this morning.”

“It was delightful,” Dylan agrees, nodding. “But probably not as good as whatever the fuck you two were doing last night.”

“We weren’t doing anything,” Jack sighs, and Dylan knows he’s still shooting for bored, but Dylan sees Jack’s hands twitch.

“Oh, I’m sure,” Dylan nods, exaggerated. “I’m sure you two were diligently going over your AP Psych notes, like you always do, every single night, and I’m sure Noah came in forty-five minutes after curfew because you two were so engrossed in—”

“Shut the fuck up, Strome,” Jack rolls his eyes, and that’s how Dylan knows he’s hit the target. 

Dylan holds up his hands in an insincere surrender. “Woah, my bad. Thought you knew.”

Jack sighs, dropping his phone next to him on the bed, looking up at Dylan with faked disinterest. “Knew what?” He’s saying like he could give less of a shit, but Dylan’s not stupid, contrary to popular belief.

Dylan grins. “Hanny’s totally in love with you, dude.” And it might be a lie, it might not be, but it doesn’t really matter. Dylan doesn’t have much of a stake in his roommate’s love life. He doesn’t really care much at all.

“Eat shit and die,” is all Jack says, and picks his phone up again, and Dylan just smirks. 

“Love you, too, babe,” Dylan sing-songs, just as Noah walks into the dorm. He pauses in the doorway, unsure, looking between Jack and Dylan carefully.

“Fucking  _ finally _ ,” Jack huffs, leaping up. “You take forever, dude.”

Noah — Noah fucking blushes. Dylan is going to put his own head through a wall. How is his shittyterribleawful roommate getting some, and not him? “Sorry,” Noah says, and well, that’s the most sincere Dylan’s ever heard him. “Symphony ran long.”

Oh, another thing. Noah plays the cello. Which he practices, in their tiny dorm room, at four in the morning. Purely to piss Dylan off. “Not too late to go back,” Dylan mutters, and he’s rewarded with Noah’s school tie hitting him in the back of the head.

“ _ How _ ,” Dylan says, turning around to glare at Noah. “ _ How _ do you have more laundry? You dumped your  _ entire _ hamper on me this morning. Who the  _ fuck _ does that. No one does that. And it was your fault, by the way, because if you hadn’t been banging your stupid ramen-noodle-hair boyfriend—”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Noah says, and to his credit, he doesn’t sound at all affected. Dylan knows for a fact that he gets that from his father, who’s some Important Guy in Boston, and he’s on TV all the time, and Dylan’s never once seen him get agitated.

Jack looks pretty wrecked, though.

“And we were studying for Psych,” Noah adds, “you should probably think about doing something like that, sometime.”

“You know what,” Dylan says, mock-awed, with his hands on his hips. “I’d  _ never _ thought about that. Studying! What a novel idea, Noah, thank you. I’ll give it a whirl.”

“Don’t be an asshole,” Noah says, patronizing, like he’s above being an asshole himself. Which, no. He dumped a hamper of dirty laundry on Dylan this very morning. Dylan’s not getting over that any time soon.

They ignore each other while Noah puts on his coat, talking idly with Jack about who’ll drive into town tonight. It’s a Friday, and the closest town is about an hour away. Most of the guys go, just to get off campus, but Dylan stays. He actually likes it when the campus is quiet, and he doesn’t have to impress anybody. He can breathe normally, when no one’s expecting much from him.

When they finally go, Dylan’s shoulders sag, and he flops onto his bed. It’s cold, because it’s a Pennsylvania autumn and the heater’s always been tricky in this building, but it’s kind of nice. It reminds Dylan of home. Something like this would have made him hurt, his freshman year, when he didn’t know how to be alone yet. He knows now. He’s not sure that’s a good thing.

He doesn’t want to think about Connor, but he doesn’t really think it matters what he wants when it comes to Connor.

_ God,  _ he’d loved him.

See, Connor was always going to be special. He came from ordinary people, but he was borne out of greatness. Born on a lucky day. Whatever you wanted to say, he was special. He was smart and funny and cooler than he should be, quiet and confident in a way Dylan could never be. So when Dylan met him—

Sorry. He can’t, right now.

  
  


And somehow it’s Friday again, and there’s a basketball game against the Catholic school upstate. Dylan is in charge of the pep rally, because nobody can rally pep like he can, and he spends a lot of time just yelling into the mic, because he knows everybody will yell back. He’s nothing if he’s not charismatic.

They’re winning, because this is Chychy and Konecny’s team, and they’ve got Duke scholarships, and this other team doesn’t have shit. It’s getting boring when they’re up 68-24, and everyone’s trying to find an afterparty that won’t get busted by campus security. And everything always gets busted by campus security. So.

So. This calls for some Mitch and Dylan Shenanigan Shit™. Patent pending.

Somewhere in the dying minutes of the game, they send Ekblad to the liquor store with a crowdfunded three-hundred-sixty-one dollars, because he looks older than God and won’t get carded. And they peer pressure Laine and Puljujarvi to host, even though it’s going to be, like a hundred grown boys, and they won’t all fit into one bedroom. But. Logistics. This isn’t even the important part. 

The important part is the noise. Because if Dylan can’t keep his mouth shut for more than a minute straight, he sure as shit can’t expect his friends to. All of his friends are Ivy-bound idiots. This is not difficult to understand. So. They’re going to be drunk, and screaming at each other, and someone will probably turn on some dated Lil Wayne song and Crouser and Konecny will fuck in public —  _ again _ — and shit will get shut down.

Unless.

Thanks to Ryan, arson is out of the question. Mitch had reassured Dylan that this was, in fact, a good thing, and not a setback, because they just want to raise a little hell, not get kicked out. 

So, Plan B. 

“This is stupid,” Mitch is whispering, even though he probably doesn’t even have to be. The game’s only just ended, and the administration is either at home or in the gym still. The administration office is completely empty. 

“You’re just mad you didn’t come up with it,” Dylan sniffs, haughty.

“No,” Mitch says, voice flat. “I think this is dumb, and it won’t work.”

“Okay, Marns,” Dylan turns to face him, and puts his hands on Mitch’s shoulders. “You gotta have faith, my man. And it’s not fun if you’re being a bummer. So. Nut up.”

“I hated that,” Mitch makes a face. “Don’t say  _ nut up _ ever again.”

“Ballsack up.”

“ _ So _ much worse.”

“Testicle upwards?”

“This is just a downhill slope, Stromer. Give up.”

Dylan just laughs, because he’s too amped to argue. Once inside the office, they lock the door from the inside, and they wind their way to the secretary’s desk, where the intercom is. It’s got full range of the school, from the soccer fields to the boiler room. It’s what announces the end of the class period, the fire drills, and tonight, it’s about to play Bon Jovi’s entire discography. On repeat. Because if  _ that’s _ loud enough, and the door’s locked, and they can’t get in to turn it all off, nobody’ll pay attention to a silly little dorm party. A get together. Wine and cheese sort of thing.

Larkin had volunteered his speaker, and Beauvy had volunteered his 2008 iPod shuffle, which, what the fuck, okay. Dylan turns the intercom on while Mitch hooks everything up. 

“Go Raptors,” he says, testing the mic, and Mitch snorts at that, thank God. Kid was tense.

And Mitch positions the speaker just right, and—

_ SHOTTHROUGHTHEHEARTANDYOU’RETOBLAME _

They sit for a minute, admiring their handiwork, and then realize they need to leave, like, now, if they don’t want to get caught. And, quite literally, there’s their window.

“You jumping first?” Mitch asks, looking down at the ground, two stories below them. There are some shrubs. It won’t hurt.

“Nah, man, all you,” Dylan says, patting Mitch’s back reassuringly. 

Mitch looks dubious. “Dyl. We did not think this through.”

Dylan frowns. “We did, though.” He pauses, squinting at Mitch. “The hell’s gotten into you, kid? You used to be Patient Zero for all our dumb shit.”

“You know it’s not a good thing, to be Patient Zero.”

“Whatever. You were always down to clown.”

“Still am.”

“Incorrect,” Dylan huffs out a sigh, and braces himself against the open window. “You’re never down to clown anymore. But, you know. It’s fine, you’re changing, you’re maturing. I’ll take this one.”

And he doesn’t think, because you can’t think at a time like this, and he jumps. There’s one flailing moment, with his stomach bottoming out to his ankles, and then he hits the shrubs. And like, it doesn’t feel  _ great _ , but nothing’s broken, and he’ll live to prank again.

He gets up, dusts himself off. His elbow is bleeding, he must have nicked it against a branch or something. No biggie. Pour some vodka on it, find a Bandaid. Now’s the time to rage.

“You good?” Mitch calls down, bent in half over the window ledge.

“All good down here,” Dylan calls up. “You coming?”

Mitch looks distressed about it, but nods. He clambers out onto the ledge, awkward, and jumps down, not nearly as graceful as Dylan. He lands with a gentle thud, exactly where Dylan had, and pops up not a second later.

“How’d that feel?” Dylan asks. And he’s gotta look crazy right now, bleeding and grinning and eyes wild, but this is when he loves himself best, when he’s doing something dumb and with his best friend in the world and about to drink himself silly.

“Felt like flying,” Mitch grins back, and jogs over to Dylan. “Hope Eks got some Molson, I was feeling pretty homesick this morning.”

“You’re such a nostalgic little fuck,” Dylan says, nudging his friend with the elbow that’s not bleeding. “Only one way to find out.”

They don’t sprint to Laine and Puljujarvi’s dorm, but it’s a near thing.

  
  


Dylan’s been making out with Chychy for maybe four minutes. They always do this, when they’re drunk enough. Dylan thinks Jake is hot and Jake thinks Dylan is funny, and when they have enough Lime-A-Ritas, they’ll do anything with each other. Jake’s an amazing kisser. They always laugh about it when they’re sober.

It helps, sometimes, to get his mind off—

They snuck into the dorm a ways down the hall from Patrik and Jesse’s, unlocked and empty. Jake’s got a hand loose around Dylan’s dick, but he’s not exactly doing much, and Dylan’s about to pull away to be like  _ you gonna do something soon, or,  _ when the door opens.

“Shit, sorry,” and  _ holy fucking shit. _

There’s Connor McDavid, in the doorway, with his hands over his eyes, like the goddamn Mary-Sue he sure as shit is not. Dylan knows for a fact that Connor has no business feeling scandalized by just seeing Dylan’s dick.

He’s the most perfect thing in the world.

“Get the fuck out,” Chychy says, not even bothering to look at Connor, just pressing a kiss to Dylan’s throat, and Connor listens. He slams the door shut, and there’s the sound of his steps away in the hall, and Dylan’s frozen under Jakob, somehow the most sober he’s ever been, and he has to go, he has to leave right this second or everything’s going to break in half again, he’s going to lose everything again, he’s going to lose  _ himself _ again, he has to, to,  _ go _ , to get out  _ now _ —

He’s gasping out,  _ sorry,  _ pulling his jeans up, hurriedly kissing Jake on the forehead because he’s an asshole but not a total asshole, and he’s running down the hallway, he has no idea where he’s going, but then there’s Mitch, in front of him, and Dylan may be bigger than him, but he kind of just collapses into Mitch’s arms, and he’s never felt this fucking awful before, not even when Connor disappeared before, because  _ shit, sorry _ are the only words Connor’s said to him since he decided Dylan wasn’t worth his time anymore.

“ _ Fuck _ ,” Dylan says, or maybe it’s Mitch, Dylan doesn’t know, doesn’t care. 

Dylan knows it’s himself saying, “I don’t want to cry in front of all these people,” and Dylan knows it’s Mitch nodding, and Mitch leading him away from everybody here, everybody clapping him on the back for the prank of the semester, everyone calling him a _ motherfucking king, Stromer. _ He’s not. He’s not.

They’re outside, finally, and Bon Jovi’s still floating from the intercom, but Dylan can’t laugh. He just looks at Mitch, who’s watching him so carefully, eyebrows knitted and frowning. 

Dylan tells him everything, how much it hurts, how much it never stopped hurting, between wracked sobs. Connor had just. Rejected him. And Dylan hadn’t, he’d never had a chance to, to—

“I love him, Marns,” Dylan finishes lamely, head tipped forward, because God, he’s so embarrassing. He’s falling after a kid who wants nothing,  _ nothing _ , to do with him, and he won’t stop falling any time soon. “I love him more than I love myself.”

Mitch looks at him, heartbroken, for one long, sad moment. “You love a lot of things more than you love yourself,” he says finally, and Dylan lets out another sob, because Mitch isn’t wrong. Mitch isn’t wrong.

They stand out in the cold night for a little while longer, and Mitch shivers, but he’s not going anywhere. Dylan can’t feel his hands anymore, shoves them in his coat pocket. “Okay,” Dylan says, voice trembling. “I think I’m going to head home.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Mitch nods, voice soft, and reaches out for Dylan’s wrist. “Hey. I love you, man, I really do.”

“Love you, too, man,” Dylan nods, and tries to grin at Mitch. It falls short, but Mitch returns it, and all Dylan can think is  _ thank God for Mitch Marner. _

Mitch offers to walk Dylan back to his dorm, but Dylan waves him off. He needs to try and get himself right again. If he’s ever gonna get over Connor, he’s gonna do it on his own. He’s just. He’s gotta be on his own for a little while longer, because the last time his mom found him sobbing over Connor, she said nothing’s gonna make this better but time and distance. Time and distance, like that was easy. Like Dylan didn’t still crave Connor, wasn’t hit with him in the quietest moments.

He’s trudging up the stairs to his floor. It’s dead silent in this building, except for the steady bassline of  _ Livin’ on a Prayer, _ and Dylan laughs to himself. He did that, him and Mitch, and it’s in these raw moments, he has to remember that he can do good things, he can make people happy. 

He grins at the floor, trying it out, but when he looks up, Connor’s waiting at his door.

Dylan’s surprised he doesn’t shit himself, honestly.

“Hey,” Connor says softly. “Could we talk?”

  
  


Dylan unlocks his door with shaking hands, and steps back, allowing Connor to go first. Connor smiles politely, and then stands in the middle of the room like a dope, waiting to be invited to sit. He’s got his hands in the pocket of his jacket, which is a jean jacket, and for some reason, Dylan’s stupidly fixated on that. It’s just a fucking jacket.

Sorry. It’s just — they haven’t spoken in eight months.

“So, um,” Connor says, and he’s got his head tipped back, looking up at the fluorescent lights. “I guess I’m gonna start with, I’m sorry.”

Dylan can’t breathe.

“Yeah?” he says, because he’s not sure he can say anything else.

“Yeah,” Connor nods, and tears his eyes away from the lights to stare at Dylan. Even in this, he’s calm composed, mouth set in a line that doesn’t wobble, not like Dylan’s. “I’m really, really sorry.”

“For what?” Dylan asks, because he knows, but he fucking wants Connor to say it.

And finally, fucking  _ finally _ , Connor looks like he’s about to crack. He regains himself quick, though, enough that what might have been a sob like Dylan’s is just a sniff. “You really gonna make me say it?”

“I think I’m allowed to,” Dylan says, and he sits down on the floor, back against Hanny’s bed. Connor mirrors him, on Dylan’s bed opposite him. They’re staring at each other, and there’s a roaring in Dylan’s ears, because he hasn’t looked at Connor this blatantly in so, so long. It’s been half-glances in the dining hall, furtive gazes in Econ at the back of Connor’s neck, short enough that Crouser won’t see. 

“You are,” Connor says, and he’s looking at the carpet now. “You are.”

Dylan knows that.

When Connor looks up, his eyes are rimmed red, and there’s a wobble to his chin. “I’m sorry I walked away. That was a fucking awful thing to do. You never deserved that.”

And Dylan wants to be mad, but all he is, he’s just, he’s lost. “Why?” And he hates the way his voice sounds, so wrecked, so helpless, but it’s true, God, it’s true.

Connor breathes out, shaky. “Dylan, I—”

“You just  _ stopped _ ,” the roaring in his ears is still there, louder, and he’s really not even sure he’s saying anything coherent, but he needs to talk, he needs Connor to  _ hear. _ “You were my best friend. And I did something dumb, I know it was stupid, on the golf cart, but was that really the breaking point for you? Me getting hurt?” He pauses for a second, just to breathe. “How was that the breaking point?”

“It wasn’t,” Connor sounds like he’s drowning.

“No?” Dylan laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Then fucking what?”

“You were about to get kicked out, Dylan,” Connor says, desperate. “You act like you, you can’t be touched, because you’re  _ Dylan Fucking Strome _ , and everyone here worships you, but you do dumb shit, Dylan. You always have. I couldn’t be around that, not last year. My whole future is riding on this school. Even tonight was stupid. Mitch told me you  _ jumped out a window _ ? Do you have no fucking regard for yourself?”

“Okay, how the fuck do you get to say that to me?” Dylan’s not yelling, but it’s a close thing. “You, who had such little  _ regard _ for me that it was perfectly okay for you to cut me out of your life?”

Connor looks like he got hit. An ugly part of Dylan thinks  _ good.  _ “You’re right,” he finally says, shoulders sagged. “You’re right.”

“You don’t get to care,” Dylan says, and his voice is shaking. “You’re not in my life anymore, and you’re the one who decided that.” And it’s a lie, and Connor probably knows that, and it doesn’t feel good to say that out loud.

Connor looks at him, and he’s crying. “Can I be?” He pauses, sniffing. “Can I be in your life again?”

And this — this was not what Dylan was expecting. He’s not even sure what it was he was expecting. But he’s, well. He’s never been able to say no to Connor before. He’s not any stronger than he was. “Why,” he says, and it doesn’t even sound like a question.

Connor’s still looking at him. “I miss you,” he says, and his voice is so small. “I miss you all the time. This place is awful without you.”

“I never left,” Dylan says, and he’s not sure if he means the school or if he means Connor.

“I know,” Connor says softly. “But I — I don’t know. I only got the Dylan Strome that everyone else got. I got the Dylan Strome that’s late to Econ and pranks the school and leads the pep rallies. I had to share you.” He laughs, and it sounds so sad. “I don’t want to share you anymore. Is that… Is that fucked up?”

“Yes,” Dylan says, but he’s fighting a smile, even if he’s fighting back tears, too.

Connor smiles weakly, like he knows Dylan’s trying not to. “I know.” He sniffs, wipes his nose with the back of his hand. “And I don’t deserve any more of you. But I wanted to tell you I’m sorry. And that I miss you, and I want to be your best friend again.”

And Dylan would love nothing more than to jump headfirst. He wants to go right back to how things were, when they were seventeen and dumb and Dylan was so in love. He wants his best friend back.

But.

But, he has to at least pretend to respect himself. And Connor fucked up, too. He can’t act like everything’s fine, because everything’s not fine. And it probably won’t be, for a little while.

“Okay,” Dylan says, quiet but firm. “I forgive you.”

Connor looks scared to smile.

“But,” Dylan says, and he can’t quite look at Connor when he says it. “I’m not your best friend. You have to, to, earn that again.”

Connor nods emphatically, eyes wide. “Yeah, yeah, of course.”

Dylan nods, slow, still not looking at Connor. “Okay. Good.”

The silence hangs heavy, unfamiliar between them. And Dylan wants to kiss him. This is nothing new.

He feels better than he has in months.

“Well,” Connor says, after a minute. “Did it hurt?”

Dylan’s fighting back a grin, and it’s only because he knows Connor’s about to say something dumb. “When I fell from heaven?” Dylan asks, eyebrows arched dubiously.

“No,” Connor makes a face. “When you jumped out of a fucking window.”

  
  


Dylan comes to Econ on time for the first time in two weeks. It’s the Monday after Connor apologized, and everything feels new. Bright, shiny, whole, and Dylan’s trying not to be too obvious about it. Mitch knows what Connor said, he told Dylan as much at Sunday practice, and even he looked excited. For one quick second, Dylan realizes how hard this must have been on Mitch. Connor and Dylan are his best friends, too. 

Mitch doesn’t look all that concerned now, though. He’s sitting on Auston’s desk, which is basically the gateway drug of sitting on Auston’s lap. Auston’s looking at Mitch like he’s perfect, which is how Mitch should always be looked at. Dylan firmly believes that.

“Hey,” Connor says, from behind Dylan, and Dylan kind of belatedly realizes he’s still standing in the doorway, kind of belatedly realizes that he and Connor are on speaking terms now.

“Hey,” Dylan says back, and it doesn’t sound like he’s dying.

Connor tips his chin at Auston and Mitch. “Cute.”

“Gay,” Dylan nods, and they both kind of snort.

“You think he’s going to do anything about it?” Connor asks, and Dylan knows he means Marns, because Marns never does shit. He gets nervous.

“He’d better,” Dylan sighs. “God. He’s so gross.”

“He’s really nasty,” Connor confirms. “He said Auston’s name in his sleep last night. I was so close to throwing my hamper at him.”

Dylan spins around to look at him, betrayed. “How do you know about that?”

Connor’s grinning. “Hanny shit-talks you during Symphony. Like, all the time.”

Dylan rolls his eyes. “Ugh, I forgot you fuck your tuba.”

“I play trumpet and you know that.”

“Okay, you fuck your trumpet.”

“Only if that’s the kind of thing that gets you going.”

Dylan knows he’s kidding, because he’s talking about sticking his dick in a brass instrument, but he still kind of freezes. But he’s Dylan Strome, and regains himself quickly. “You know it,” and it’s weak at best, but it still makes Connor laughs, and that’s really all that matters.

Connor’s still giggling when he asks Dylan what he’s doing during lunch. “Knitting Club,” Dylan says, not thinking about it until Connor’s eyebrows are in his hair, which is impressive, because the kid’s got a  _ forehead. _ “Mondays and Fridays. Joined it awhile back. It clears my head.”

“That’s gangster,” Connor nods, and Dylan fights back a grimace, because God, that was embarrassing to hear. “Well. I wanted to see if you wanted to get lunch.”

And he does, he really does, but he can’t just. Give in. So he grimaces, shakes his head. “Sorry. I’m, like, two meetings away from finishing my first hat.”

“I doubt that,” Connor says, and, well, he’s not wrong. Dylan’s mostly just trying to get his eighth attempt at a scarf right.

“You’re smart,” Dylan admits.

“Can I come?” Connor asks, and it’s all mock-confidence. Dylan can see that he’s worried Dylan might say no.

“Yeah,” he says, a little too loud.

Connor’s grin is everything in the world, and Dylan is fucked. Way, way more fucked than he thought he was.

  
  


Knitting Club. It happened. 

Dylan’s still not totally used to Connor by his side again, especially in the places that weren’t Connor’s before. Knitting Club had been a place untouched by Connor, and that was kind of therapeutic, in a way, but Dylan was honestly batshit fucking insane if he thought he could keep his distance. That was never going to happen.

To be fair, though, Mikey and Nate and Alex and Jake and Co. look a little rattled, seeing Connor. You’d have to be living under several rocks at this school to miss the Connor v. Dylan drama. They’ve gotten a lot of double takes today.

“Are there always pizza rolls?” Connor asks, but doesn’t take one, because he’s probably worried that they’re not for him.

“You have so much to learn,” Dylan sighs, and it doesn’t come out at all like he wanted.

“Take one,” Mikey says, getting to work on that scarf again. “Or, be Dylan, and take forty.”

“Have you no shame,” Connor mutters, shaking his head at Dylan.

“None,” Dylan sighs. And Connor laughs. Because yeah. He has no shame.

Connor doesn’t eat anything, Dylan eats everything, and pulls out his shitty scarf. Connor, to his credit, does not laugh or point, but presses his lips together to maybe keep himself from doing the former.

“Will you teach me?” Connor asks, voice soft. He’s been watching Dylan for a little while, watching Dylan fuck up and skip stitches because his hands are shaking a little, because Connor’s watching him, and he has never once been cool in his life. (And, really, this is especially stupid, because this is Connor. Connor, who cried at the  _ Minions _ movie, who doesn’t eat bacon because of  _ Charlotte’s Web _ , and whose favorite book in the world is  _ Ferdinand the Bull. _ )

“Yeah,” Dylan says, and he’s speaking just as quietly. He hands the scarf over to Connor, who takes it so, so carefully, like it’s a newborn baby or something, and Dylan can’t even laugh at that, because  _ fuck. _

And he spends the next twenty minutes explaining how to make a stitch, which, of course, Connor catches on to like the prodigy he is. Dylan can’t stop looking at his hands.

When the bell rings, Connor hands back the scarf, which is now somewhat resembling a scarf, and smiles at Dylan, close-lipped. “Thank you,” he says, like Dylan’s  _ bestowed _ something, which, no. It’s a frickin’ scarf.

“Yeah,” Dylan says. And he kind of watches Connor go, backpack slung over his shoulder, tie straight and dress shoes tied. More composed than Dylan’s ever been.

Dylan doesn’t go to afternoon classes.

  
  


Connor was one of the few kids on scholarship, here. There’s only one, every few years, one who deserves it. The rest of them can buy their way in, easy enough, the Hanifins and the Tkachuks and yeah, the Stromes. But Connor’s smart, the kind of smart that doesn’t come around all that often, which is why it was so startling that he chose Dylan.

Because he did, really. He chose Dylan. Not at first, no, because at first they were just freshmen, and Dylan spent all his time with Ryan because he was so fucking homesick, and so by default he spent all his time with Tavares, who did everything in his power to keep Dylan from getting kicked out his first year here. Because, really, Dylan was trying to get kicked out. He did all that dumb shit when he was fifteen because he wanted to be home, not here. It got so bad that he didn’t care if it meant he couldn’t hack it at boarding school. He hated his roommate and his only friend was his brother’s boyfriend.

And then Mitch stopped being a little shit, or maybe Dylan did, and things felt okay again. Dylan didn’t necessarily stop doing dumb shit, but he definitely got more careful. And that’s probably because of Connor, in some cosmic, weird way. Like, he must have known, somehow, that Connor was about to enter his life, and he’d better button the fuck up. And he did.

Connor and Dylan had the same study period, right before lunch. Dylan never did anything, just fucked around on his phone or played 2048 on his computer, but Connor would sit in the desk in front of him, and that’s how Dylan fell in love with the back of Connor’s neck. 

(If you asked him to describe the back of Connor’s neck now, he could. He could close his eyes and talk about the peach fuzz hair at the nape of his neck that gets a little bit longer when Connor hasn’t had a haircut in a while, he could talk about the jut of bone at the top of his spine, he could talk about how when Connor gets anxious, he reaches up and massages the back of his own neck in some ridiculous self-soothing way. Dylan could do all of that.)

They were in the same Latin class, and Dylan didn’t — and still doesn’t — know what pluperfect was, but he couldn’t really think of a better person to explain it to him. He also couldn’t think of a better reason to talk to Connor.

Connor had helped out easily, getting out highlighters and colored pens to circle and highlight everything Dylan needed to know. Dylan didn’t hear a thing he said, that day. He just stared at Connor’s hands, thought to himself  _ Connor has really long fingers _ and then actively willed that thought away, because Connor was going to be his best friend, God damn it, and you can’t go around falling in love with your best friends. You can’t.

Dylan fell in love with his best friend.

  
  


Dylan is almost asleep when Hanny bangs into their room, carrying his giant fucking cello. He seems pissed, and Dylan doesn’t trust it.

“The fuck are you so mad about?” Dylan grumbles, muffled through his pillow.

Noah glares at him. “If you fucked McDavid on my bed, I’m officially asking for a new roommate.”

Well, Dylan’s awake now.

“Okay,  _ no _ ,” Dylan sits up. “Why would I fuck Connor? Why would I fuck Connor on  _ your _ bed?”

“I don’t know what the fuck you do,” Noah throws his hands in the air, helpless. “Maybe that’s your thing, having makeup sex on your roommate’s bed.”

“Hanny, what the  _ hell _ .”

“Be honest,” Noah says, jaw set. “I will be so fucking mad.”

“When are you not?”

“Jesus, you  _ did _ —”

“No, I did not,” Dylan says, vaguely panicked, because God, he wishes, but also God, why is this happening? “What the hell are you talking about?”

Noah fixes Dylan with this look, somehow cold and disbelieving and smug all at once, and says, sighing flatly, “Everyone knows you guys hooked up after the basketball game. That’s, like, common knowledge.” 

And like, Dylan’s never been hit by a car, but this can’t be far from the feeling. “Um. No.”

Noah rolls his eyes. “Don’t even lie, Strome, you’re not that good at it.”

“I’m not lying to you,” he says, with as much emphasis he can manage with a shaking voice.

Noah sighs again. “Look, someone saw you guys going into our dorm, and both of you were in here a long time, and Connor didn’t leave until late. You guys haven’t spoken to each other since, what, junior year? Who’s gonna believe that you,  _ Dylan Strome,  _ just sat down and had a nice little chat about your feelings.”

Dylan sounds defeated, even to himself, when he says, “We did, though.”

And something kind of softens in Noah. Maybe his shoulders go less stiff. “Oh.”

“I promise you,” Dylan breathes out, shaky. “We didn’t have sex. And even if we did, it wouldn’t have been on your bed.”

“Okay,” Noah nods after a minute. “I believe you.”

“Who,” Dylan starts, but he’s not really breathing right, so he takes another minute. “Who’d you hear that from?”

Noah blinks at him. “Man, everyone. When you guys started talking in Econ, everyone flipped out. Jack and I for sure thought—” He stops himself, and he even offers a small smile to Dylan, careful. “Are you guys good now, though?”

“I don’t fucking know, dude, mind your business,” is all Dylan says, but he’s grinning when he says it, and so is Noah.

“Christ, dude,” Hanny’s still grinning, kicking off his shoes, “just when I try to be a good roommate.”

“You literally just threatened to move out,” Dylan laughs, and he thinks that this might be the first time he and Hanny have ever joked around together. It’s not terrible.

“That was then,” Noah rolls his eyes, smirking. “This is now.”

Dylan huffs out one last laugh, but he’s mind is moving too fast for sleep now, because what if Connor figures out what people thought, what if Connor’s so fucking disgusted by everything, by  _ Dylan _ and he just, just, fucks off again, and now that Dylan’s been reminded of everything Connor was, Connor is, he’s not sure if he can go without him again.

“I just—” Dylan starts, but then he swallows it down,  _ hard,  _ and looks at his hands. “I just missed him.”

He’s half-expecting Hanny to snort out a laugh, but all he gets is a smile that feels a little bit hollow. “I get that, man. I don’t know what I’d do without Jack.”

Dylan’s proud of himself for not just laughing his ass off, right there. He can’t imagine for a second, really, feeling any kind of this crushing absence from missing Jack Eichel. “Is Jack your best friend?” He finally asks, because he doesn’t want to say _ boyfriend.  _ He doesn’t think Noah wants him too, either. 

“Easy,” Noah nods. “Since we were, like, four.”

“I didn’t know you guys knew each other like that.”

“Yeah. Our moms took us to the same park in Boston when we were little.”

“That’s cute,” Dylan grins, only teasing a little bit.

“Fuck you,” Noah laughs, and Dylan does, too.

  
  


Marns has a hickey at lacrosse practice, and Dylan has a heart attack. 

“YOU,” Dylan screams, accusing.

Mitch claps a hand over his neck, caught. “Shut the  _ fuck  _ up, Stromer, I swear to God—”

“How could you not tell me?” Dylan shakes his head, only sort of pretending to be heartbroken that Mitch didn’t tell him.

“I thought Connor would have told you,” Mitch says, swatting at Dylan half-heartedly with the hand not covering the hickey.

“Well, now I can be mad at him, too,” Dylan sniffs, swatting Mitch back. “Wait, fuck. Should I be mad at Auston, too?” He pauses, considering. “No. You did this. Explain yourself.”

Mitch sighs, pained, and picks up his lacrosse stick. “We should at least look like we’re warming up.”

“If you avoid answering my question one more time, I will smother you in your sleep.”

“You’re not my roommate anymore, Strome.”

“I have my ways, Marner. Answer the damn question.”

Mitch sighs again. “We were in the library—”

Dylan grins. “Oh, shit.”

“Fuck you,” Mitch elbows him, hard. “We were in the library. Well, no. I was in the library, and he walked in, and I guess, I don’t know, I was just, like, staring at him? And he saw me, which was embarrassing, but then he sat down at my table, and we talked about Columbia, and Econ, and I don’t know. He smells good. He smells  _ really _ good. And I told him that, and he just, I don’t know. He smiled at me, and I kissed him.” And for one happy second, Mitch has this bashful little grin, and Dylan’s reminded just why he had a crush on Mitch. He’s funny and open and warm and of course Auston likes him. 

“So you told him you like him?” Dylan says, scooping a ball into his stick, cradling it idly. 

That happy look is gone, and Dylan finds himself missing it. “No,” Mitch says, all confidence gone.

“Why, though?” Dylan shakes his head. “You have literal proof, on your neck, of him liking you.”

Mitch sighs. “It’s just not how I pictured it. I can’t see him dating me.”

“Why not?”

Mitch rolls his eyes, but there’s no fire in it. Dylan stares at him for a little while, because Mitch isn’t saying anything, but Dylan knows Mitch. Mitch needs to talk, when he’s feeling like this. If he bottles shit up, he’ll shatter. “It’s just — not like you and Connor.”

Uh.

“What does that mean?” Dylan’s voice cracks.

“I don’t know, dude,” Mitch laughs, verging on hysterical. “You guys made sense. You balanced each other out.”

“We weren’t dating, though,” Dylan says, and it hurts to say it, hurts to be reminded. And he can’t at all picture that, someone as good as Mitch Marner seeing Connor and Dylan and thinking  _ want that _ . Even when things were great between them, Dylan always wanted more.

“Yes, you were,” Mitch scoffs. “I know you don’t think so, but you totally were.”

  
  


Dylan gets hit in the head with a lacrosse ball because he’s still where Mitch was, talking about how—

Well, Mitch is wrong sometimes. Mitch is wrong this time. Mitch is so definitely wrong it’s almost funny. Almost. Well, Dylan would be laughing, but his head hurts like a bitch, and Coach sends him to the nurse as soon as it happens, because if they get another concussion on this team they’re going to have to call up the guys from JV, which won’t be awful but won’t be great, either.

Dylan doesn’t have a concussion, and he didn’t think he would. But Coach tells him to take the rest of practice off anyway, and Dylan takes that, easy.

None of this explains why he texts Connor  _ wyd _ though. 

_ Nm,  _ Connor texts back, only a few seconds later.  _ Wanna get food?? _

Dylan always does.

He and Connor meet at the snack bar on the first floor of Dylan’s dorm building, and Connor’s already shoving Red Vines into his mouth like he thinks Dylan’s about to steal them. Dylan wouldn’t. Licorice is the Devil’s candy and he would rather die than eat that shit. 

(Connor eats some every day. And sometimes Dylan used to dream about tasting it on Connor’s tongue. And it’s really been fucking with him.)

“You are disgusting,” is what Dylan leads with. “No one eats licorice.”

“I do,” Connor says, the lamest chirp yet. “Why aren’t you at practice?”

“Because I have been deceived,” Dylan says, dramatic, flopping down on the sofa next to Connor. “By one Mitchell Marner. And you, probably. When were you guys going to tell me that Mitch has a hickey that can be seen from across campus?”

“Shit, I totally was gonna,” Connor claps a hand to his forehead. “But I wanted all three of us there, because I’m not good at making fun of Marns on my own.”

“You are not,” Dylan agrees. “You are startlingly bad at it.”

“I was good for a little bit,” Connor frowns. “Last year.”

Dylan huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, and then you stopped talking to me, so I can’t imagine you got any better.”

And Dylan — he hadn’t meant to say it, at least not like that, because now Connor’s got this look, somewhere caught between hurt and shock, and he’s wetting his lips, nervous, and Dylan would rather shove an entire box of Red Vines down his throat than be here right now. But he’s not going to bolt, because he’s trying not to do that so much anymore, and he owes himself more than that. He owes Connor more than that.

Connor’s head is ducked, but Dylan can still see the color in his cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” Dylan says, and he fights back a weird urge to grab Connor’s hands. “You already said that.”

Connor laughs, empty. “I wanted to say that every day. I don’t know why I didn’t.”

“It’s okay,” Dylan says, even though it wasn’t, even though he went through hell.

Connor finally looks up at him, finally smiles a little bit. “You’re a good liar, you know that?”

Dylan doesn’t really know how to answer that, so he takes one of Connor’s Red Vines and jams it into his mouth before either of them know what’s going on. Connor sputters out a protest and Dylan thinks he’s going to projectile vomit, but at least they’re not talking about this anymore. 

“You have confrontation issues,” Connor says, once Dylan’s swallowed and Connor’s not red from laughing anymore. “Big ones.”

“My issues extend much further than confrontation,” Dylan says, because they do. “Such as, but not limited to: attention deficit disorders, inferiority complexes, and an inability to digest lactose.”

“You seeing a therapist yet?” Connor asks, grinning. Connor’s been seeing one since he was nine years old, because he used to have trouble making friends. When he first told Dylan that, Dylan broke in half.

“Does Marns count?” Dylan jokes.

“Once he gets his PhD, yes.”

“Good. I’ve been giving him a lot of practice.”

“You and me both. Especially this year.”

Dylan straightens up a little. “Yeah? Why this year?”

Connor fixes him with a look, slightly exasperated. It’s his cutest face, Dylan absolutely does not think. “Dude. Are you serious?”

“I mean, yeah,” Dylan squints at him. He honestly cannot think of a single reason why Connor McDavid wouldn’t be on top of the world this year. He’s the smartest kid in their grade, easy, and he’s gotta be getting acceptance letters and scholarship offers—

“I lost my best friend,” Connor says plainly, but Dylan can hear the pang of something deeper in his voice. “And it was my fault. So I’ve been handling that super well.”

Dylan feels that same roaring in his ears, and if he looks at Connor too long, he’s gonna say something stupid. So he ducks his head, laughs just to make a sound, and says, “You can’t keep bringing that shit up, man.”

He hears Connor breathe out, shaky and wet. “I do, though,” he says, and his voice is so low that Dylan has to strain to hear. “If I don’t, I’m just going to keep looking at you, and you’re not going to know how shitty I feel. I need you to know. I can’t… You can’t keep thinking that I’m not sorry.”

“I know you’re sorry,” Dylan says, and it feels like sand in his mouth. Yeah, objectively, he does know Connor’s sorry. He knows it’s gotta suck, when you lose your friend and it’s your own damn fault. But he doesn’t know. He won’t know, really, what it felt like to be Dylan these last few months, when all he wanted was an answer. “But we’re okay now. You didn’t, like, lose me.”

“Well,” Connor says, and it looks like he hadn’t meant to.

“Well,” Dylan arches an eyebrow.

Connor looks embarrassed, and that same sick little part of Dylan that’s angry that Connor will never understand just how he fucked with Dylan’s self esteem is pleased. “I mean. Jakob.”

Dylan, for the life of him, cannot figure out what the hell Jake Chychrun has to do with any of this. “What?”

Connor’s full on blushing now. “I saw you guys.”

Honestly, Connor speaks a different language than Dylan. “You’re gonna have to be a little bit more specific, Davo.”

Connor winces at the nickname. “I literally walked in on him jerking you off. Is that specific enough for you?”

Dylan sputters, because  _ really, Connor. _ “After the game?”

Connor’s looking everywhere but at Dylan. “Yeah.”

And then Dylan starts laughing, hard as hell, because this kid is so detached from Dylan’s reality that it’s funny. “I was congratulating him,” he says, once he’s regained his breathing. “On a well-played game.”

“You can say congratulations with words, too,” Connor says, eyes on the floor.

Dylan smirks at Connor’s discomfort. He’s missed making Connor blush. It’s just as easy as it used to be. “Not the way I do it.”

“Clearly,” Connor says, finally forcing his eyes to Dylan’s face. He looks vaguely pissed. “Is that, like, a new thing, you and Jake, or—”

Dylan shrugs. “I mean, everyone thinks he’s hot, right?”

“I guess,” Connor says, soft. “Not my type, really.”

Dylan leans forward, and this is the part of himself he never liked. He goes and goes and goes and doesn’t stop until somebody’s crying. He’s not letting Connor off easy, not this time, but he’s not exactly making it easy for himself, either. “What’s your type, Connor?”

At this point, it’s just a dare, a game of chicken neither of them are stupid enough to quit. Connor shrugs, not enough confidence in it, and says, “Not Chychrun.”

“That narrows it down, then,” Dylan nods, sitting back. Connor quit.

“He’s yours, though?” Connor says, after a minute, and it’s so carefully genuine that it makes something in Dylan  _ hurt _ . Connor did not quit. Connor didn’t even realize they were playing.

“Yeah,” Dylan lies through his teeth, in some bizarre hope of self-preservation. “Yeah, he’s mine.”

  
  


Mitch calls him at 1:07 in the morning. At this time, Dylan would usually be dodging a hamper, but Noah’s not back from Jack’s yet, and Dylan’s not even asleep. 

He picks up on the first ring, and Marns is whispering, but he might as well be yelling. “Hello, Dylan,” he hisses, and oh, the kid is angry. “Why did Connor just ask me how long you’ve been dating Jakob Chychrun?”

Dylan actually laughs out loud at that. “Jesus Christ,” he finally says, which proves not to be a sufficient answer.

“You need to shut the fuck up,” Mitch warns, still whispering. “Seriously. He’s been moping for the past forty-five minutes, and I had to threaten to call his mom before he told me what was wrong.”

“I never said we were dating,” Dylan says easily, flopping back onto his bed. “I just said that he was my type.”

“He’s not your type,” Dylan can almost see the look of disgust on Marns’ face. “You like shy boys who make you feel stupid and can teach you the pluperfect.”

“I was actually talking about my inferiority complex earlier today—”

“Shut your mouth, Strome, I swear to God.”

“Jeez. Okay.”

“He’s so bummed, dude. I don’t even know how you did this.”

Dylan frowns. This is not on him. “Why is this his problem? Does he like Jake?”

There’s a thud on Mitch’s end, which could be the phone dropping or Mitch thumping his head against the wall. Each are probable. Mitch’s voice comes back a second later. “Fuck you, Dylan.”

“I so sincerely have no idea what’s happening.”

“Not even  _ you _ are this stupid, Dylan. Figure it out.”

Okay. No need to be a dick about it. 

Well, Dylan can be a dick about it. “How’s Matthews, Marns?”

Evidently, Mitch is done whispering. “FUCK. YOU.”

  
  


Connor comes to Knitting Club now. Dylan can’t seem to be mad about it.

And honestly, he wishes he was cool enough to act like, yeah, he’s dating Jakob Chychrun, but the first thing he says when he sees Connor, needles and yarn in hand, is “Me and Jake aren’t dating.”

Connor blinks, but his face is blank. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Dylan nods, because his street cred is basically gone already. He just — he can’t have Connor thinking that. “Just. So you know.”

And thankfully, Mikey and Nate are talking about The Scarf way too loudly across the room, and no one’s paying attention to Dylan and Connor. Everyone else seems to be, so it’s a nice reprieve, a quiet moment in which Dylan can just look at Connor’s hands.

“Are you dating anybody?” Connor asks, after a minute.

“No,” Dylan says, honest. “I don’t know if I’d make the best boyfriend.”

Connor hums, thoughtful. “Yeah, probably not.”

Dylan grins. “Shut up.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Connor laughs easily, and a moment later, “my theory is, if you’re a good friend, you’re a good boyfriend.”

“And I’m a good friend, then?” Dylan asks, and he hates it, how his voice wavers. 

Connor looks up at him, eyes clear and warm and honest, and it looks like he’s trying to smile. It turns out a bit too wobbly, and Dylan’s heart hurts, and the roaring in his ears is loud enough for him to miss whatever Connor’s said.

  
  


Dylan’s not sure if he’s a good friend. He’d felt kind of shitty, the other night, after Mitch hung up. He should probably be doing more, when it comes to Mitch and Matthews, just to make Mitch’s life a little bit easier. He owes that kid a lot, more than he’d like to think about. He’d relied on Mitch, too heavily, back when Connor—

He’s not going to think about the bad days, anymore. It isn’t doing anyone any favors. And Connor’s not going anywhere, he’s made that abundantly clear, with his big dumb deer eyes and his words, carefully chosen. He’s always careful, Connor is. Careful with his friends. Careful with Dylan. Sometimes he looks at Dylan like he thinks Dylan might break if he’s held wrong. And some days, he wonders if he might.

He’d wanted to tell Connor he loved him, that night. His hands were shaking, and he’d almost said it through chattering teeth, mid-March and ankle deep in the snow outside Connor’s dorm room. And Connor had stared at him, eyes too wide and mouth in a small little  _ oh _ as he realized what Dylan was about to do, and he hadn’t said anything. All he’d said was  _ Dylan, _ too soft and too comforting, and nothing else.

Dylan didn’t know why he thought Connor might.

(Not totally true. Because Connor had once mapped the palms of Dylan’s hands with a Sharpie, labelling the heartlines as rivers, the blisters from his stick as the mountains, with a fevered grin and a hushed voice. He told Dylan about his family and the weight on his shoulders, about his fear of flying and about what waited for him beyond this place. “You’re coming with me,” Connor had said, half-in Dylan’s lap, forehead on Dylan’s shoulder. “Wherever I go, I want you there.”)

Dylan had put his mouth on a bottle in place of Connor’s mouth, stole a golf cart, and drove it around the track until the car was spinning, too. Ryan had told him, in that hospital room, that the cart had flipped, and Dylan should be thankful his skull was still in one piece. 

He didn’t tell Marns why he did it until the night before they were supposed to fly back to Toronto, junior year finished and the promise of summer stretching ahead of them. 

“I’m just stupid,” Dylan had finished, wiping his cheeks with the back of his hand.

Mitch had looked at him, burning, and he’d pulled Dylan close to him, tight enough for it to hurt. “I love you,” he’d said, and his voice had rasped, and Dylan had cried some more, because he didn’t deserve that.

He’s trying to be better. He’s trying to be a better friend to Mitch, because Mitch deserves that. And he wants to be better to Connor, too. Connor hadn’t deserved everything Dylan had put on him, and Dylan knows that. He’s learned. He won’t do it again.

He’d promised himself he’d go slow. He couldn’t do it again.

  
  


He’d do it all again, if Connor asked.

  
  


It’s rare, to get a snow day up here, even if they are in the dog days of December. Everyone walks to class, the teachers live on campus, and when the power goes out from a storm, the backup generator picks up just a few seconds later. Classes only get cancelled when the generator doesn’t work, and not even Dylan will fuck with that generator, so Dylan makes his own snow days.

Last year, Mitch and Dylan and Connor had skipped their afternoon classes, filled up the backseat of Mitch’s Jeep with donuts and coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts, and drove as far away as they could in three hours, no destination in mind, and spent an hour and a half sledding down some hilly roadside farm they’d trespassed onto, and Connor fell asleep on the way home. And that was when Drake’s new album had just come out, and they played it so loud that their teeth shook with the bass of it, and that was one of those golden memories, that even when it was happening, Dylan knew that things were  _ good _ .

He’s been having those moments a lot, recently. Connor’s his best friend again, Mitch is dumb (but not that dumb) in love, and he got a yes from Brown University the other day. He’s going to college. He has his people back. His asshole roommate might not be an asshole, though that’s still to be proven. And his urge to be stupid is diluted by Connor acting as his impulse control. He’s probably not going to get kicked out after all. He might even graduate.

So when he brings up the idea of a snow day to Mitch and Connor at lunch, they both stare at him like Dylan’s fucking with them.

“You’re stupid,” Mitch says, and he shoves the rest of his sandwich in his mouth. They all take a minute to watch him chew, and it’s more disgusting than anything, watching his jaw work like that. Connor looks slightly green as Mitch finally swallows, then glares at Dylan with full attention. “You’ve been so good, Dyl.”

“I know,” Dylan pouts. “My skin’s starting to itch. I have to raise some hell or I’m going to die.”

“Does your mother know you’re like this?” Mitch shakes his head, solemn. “Seriously.”

“Yes, and she loves me anyway,” Dylan sniffs. “Just like you should, as my best friend.”

“Hey,” Connor frowns.

Dylan rolls his eyes. “Oh my God, Davo, you too.”

Connor’s still frowning, but Dylan can tell he’s thinking it over. “Okay,” Connor says finally. “Let’s do it.”

Dylan could kiss him right now. “This is why I like you best, Davo,” he says gleefully, and Mitch sits back in his chair, sulking. “Okay. It’s supposed to snow on Friday, right before we break for Christmas, so if we time it just right, it’ll look like we flew home early, and not like—”

“I’m not going,” Mitch says softly, the quietest interjection Dylan’s ever gotten.

“Well,” Dylan arches his eyebrows. “You better have a damn good explanation, bud.”

“Fuck you,” Mitch shoots back, but there’s no heat behind it, just a formality. He takes another minute, looks between Connor and Dylan, and says, “I’m leaving Thursday. With Auston.”

Honest to God, Dylan will flip this table.

“Okay, fuck you,” he says, because it’s better than just screaming. “Why does no one tell me jack shit anymore? I promise you, I am trustworthy, I am loyal, I rarely overreact—”

“Dylan,” Connor scoffs.

“And I would love to know just when you two decided to not be dumb, and to finally kiss each other on the face for once, and say  _ gee, Auston, I sure do love you _ —”

“Will you stop talking?” Mitch kicks him under the table, but he’s grinning in that embarrassed sort of way, like he knows he’s being a dope, like he know Dylan’s only freaking out because he cares. He cares so fucking much. “We haven’t decided anything. He’s my friend.”

“Connor is your friend,” Dylan says, and Connor shrugs, nodding, because yes. “Does Connor give you hickeys approximately the same size as the state of Alaska?”

“Were you born this dramatic?” Mitch scowls.

“ _ Yes _ ,” Dylan throws his hands up. “Clearly. This has got to be genetic.”

Mitch laughs at that, and Dylan’s not about to let him off easy about this whole Auston thing, but he’s also got to make sure that Connor won’t chicken out, either. 

Connor’s just smiling at him, cheeks a little pink. “I’m still in, no worries,” he says, looking only at Dylan, and Dylan has to look away.

  
  


By the time Thursday rolls around, half the school is gone. They get a whole month off, half of December and half of January, so the foreigners can really go home and see their families. They’re usually the ones who leave first — the Provorovs, the Ahos, the Nylanders, all of them usually ending up on the same connecting flight to Amsterdam. Dylan pities those flight attendants. 

But he also kind of loves it, when the school gets empty like this. The hallways echo, the dorm building gets a little quieter, and Dylan gets to think a little bit more.

Connor can’t make it to Knitting Club, something about meeting with his Latin teacher before she heads home for the holidays. Dylan makes a face at that, and Connor makes a face back, and soon enough they’re standing in an empty hallway, making increasingly gross faces at each other, until Connor quits first because he’s worried his teacher might’ve forgotten about him. So, Dylan heads on into Knitting Club alone, and this time, only Mikey and Nate are sitting in the bean bags.

“Boys,” Dylan says, flopping down into the empty bean bag next to them.

“Hi, Dylan,” Mikey says placidly, and he’s still working on that damn scarf, and Dylan wants to measure it, kind of, just to see how ridiculous Mikey is. “Thought you’d be heading home by now.”

“Nah,” Dylan shrugs. “I take my academics very seriously.”

Nate snorts, and Dylan kicks him in the shin, half-heartedly. Maybe by accident, these guys know Dylan pretty well. They’ve never once asked questions, never once looked at Dylan and wanted him to be something else, something more. Dylan knew that a lot of people wanted something special out of him, wanted a story to tell their roommate Sunday night, about how Dylan had masterminded something great, about how Dylan had gotten so fucked up he’d climbed the flagpole, about how Dylan had given the whole party the speech from  _ Miracle _ and then thrown up all over himself. And yeah, okay. Sometimes Dylan liked being that kid. He liked knowing how to make people laugh. But somewhere, that got to be a responsibility, and, and, that’s not what he’s here for. That was never the plan.

And Knitting Club is dumb, because it is. And Dylan does not give a shit about yarn, and that is a fact. But these are nice guys, who don’t expect anything of Dylan except his appetite, and were happy to accept him, happy to accept  _ Connor _ , and Dylan doesn’t really know how to thank them for that.

“Pensive today, Stromer,” Nate says, and for the first time, Dylan realizes Nate doesn’t knit. He just sits, talks circles around Mikey, and Mikey just nods, working diligently on that fucking scarf, and he listens to Nate.

Dylan’s going to have to let Marns know that there isn’t just one way to like someone. There’s not.

“Guess so,” Dylan says, and if his voice is a little rough, that’s for them to know.

  
  


Dylan almost collides with Hanny walking into their dorm. Noah’s got a bag slung over his shoulder and a thick puffer jacket on, and Dylan had forgotten to ask when he was leaving.

“Now,” Noah answers when Dylan asks. “Me and Jack are driving.”

“Shit,” Dylan frowns. “Isn’t it, like, nine hours to Boston?”

Noah shrugs. “We do it every year.”

Dylan snorts out a laugh, but it’s not a mean one. It hasn’t been, not for a while. In some weird, roundabout way, he and Noah are friendly. Dylan can probably chalk that up to Connor, because he and Noah are weirdly tight from Symphony. 

And he’s been thinking about asking this for a while, but he couldn’t really find a good time, since Hanny continues to come back to their room super late and continues to forget how to set a damn alarm. “Hanny,” Dylan asks, and he doesn’t love how serious his voice sounds, but he’s already started, and Mama Strome doesn’t raise quitters. “Why aren’t you and Eichs rooming together?”

Dylan can see Noah balking, eyes wide and blinking and mouth open. And because he’s seen that look enough on his own face, Dylan can tell that he’s trying to decide whether or not to lie. Honestly, either is fine. Dylan’s not that invested.

Noah’s head dips down, and he tells the truth.

“He wanted to,” he says, and he sounds almost embarrassed, although that might not be the right word for it. “I did, too. We’d done it last year. We’re — we’re best friends.” And there’s a little pause there, enough for Noah to breathe out, shaky. “Things just felt a lot different, last spring.”

And Dylan’s not going to ask what that means, but he knows Noah by now, and unfortunately that also means he knows Eichel, and Dylan sighs before putting a hand on Noah’s shoulder. They’re both trying not to flinch when he does it, but Dylan powers through, says, “No fucking shit,” and Noah bursts out laughing. Dylan does, too, once he gets over the shock of that, and soon Noah’s wiping his eyes, and there’s something like relief on his face.

“That’s not always a bad thing, though,” Dylan says, once they’ve calmed down. “Like. It was for me—” And he’s forcing himself to gloss over the fact that he just told his roommate and friend of two minutes that he loves Connor, nope, they’re not discussing this right now. “—But you’re a lot smarter than me, Hanny. Gotta be all those long hours studying Psych with Eichel.”

Noah barks out another laugh, loud and short, and okay, Dylan guesses that’s how Hanny laughs. “We’re not actually studying.”

Dylan laughs, too. “Oh buddy, do I ever know that.”

Noah smiles for a minute, and yeah, Dylan can see what Eichel sees. The boy has a very symmetrical face. “Stromer,” he says, after a minute. “Are we friends?”

On instinct, Dylan makes a face. “ _ No _ . Ew.”

Noah laughs again, and Jesus Christ, is it always that loud? “Good. I’m not sure how I’d explain that on the ride home.”

“Our newfound not-friendship should not be the one thing you’re planning on explaining to Eichel on the way back to Boston. I’m telling you that as your not-friend.”

Noah rolls his eyes, but that doesn’t at all hide the fact that he is one-hundred-percent blushing. “Fuck you, Strome,” he says, and shifts his bag higher up on his shoulder, heading to the door.

“Fuck you, Hanifin,” Dylan shoots back.

Noah’s almost gone when he turns around, one last time. “You don’t know that,” he says, and Dylan’s very confused.

“What don’t I know?”

Noah pauses. “Well, a lot of things. But — did you ever tell him?”

Dylan is acutely aware of the fact that he never told Connor a lot of things. “No.”

And there’s a look on Noah’s face that Connor’s a little more used to, all exasperation and no sympathy. “How can you not take your own advice?”

Dylan frowns. “I am king of not doing what’s in my best interest. You have to know that by now.”

Noah grimaces. “Maybe you stop doing that, then. Maybe that should be, like, a New Year’s thing for you.”

“A lot of things should be New Year’s resolutions for me. I need to start finding ways to get more calcium, I should probably drink a  _ lot  _ less—”

“You’re so hard to talk to, it defies science,” Noah scowls, rolling his eyes again. “Talk to McDavid. Or something. I really don’t know why this matters to me at all.” And he’s out the door, and it’s almost shut behind him when Dylan hears him call  _ But Merry Christmas anyway, Stromer, _ and Dylan doesn’t fight the grin that comes. 

  
  


Friday morning, the school’s got maybe six people still there, and Connor and Dylan are not about to join them. 

When Dylan wakes up, the sky is white with snow, and there’s already blankets of the stuff all over the grass. The roads are paved, though, because there have been taxis and shuttles to the airport since four in the morning, and it’s going to be totally safe to drive. 

And Dylan had already rounded up all of the food leftover in the Common Room’s fridge, the stuff that’d go bad in the month off, and Connor’s made a pot of shitty coffee, and soon enough they’re running through the snow to the student parking lot, where Dylan’s piece-of-shit-hand-me-down-SUV lives, the very same one that used to be Ryan’s. It’s got weird stains from the last time they made their own snow day, when Dylan skidded on black ice and Mitch’s Iced Capp flew all over the back seat, and also from Other Things involving Ryan and John Tavares. Other Things that Dylan would really prefer not to think about.

But really, right now—

All he can think about is Connor. And he’s right next to him, sliding into the passenger seat with red cheeks and a nervous grin, and there’s snow in his hair, and that’s his best friend, that’s the only guy in the world Dylan has ever loved like this, and God, he’s never gonna get a love like that again. His heart feels too small for everything he feels for Connor McDavid.

They don’t turn on the radio right away, just drive slow outside the school gates. It’s so quiet it feels almost alien, and Dylan would love to focus on the beauty of Northeastern Pennsylvania, he really would, but  _ Connor. _

“I missed these,” Connor says suddenly, the first one to talk. “Snow days.”

“Back home, when we were little?” Dylan asks, and his voice cracks.

Connor shrugs. “I guess so. But these more.”

Dylan lets that sit for a little while, because it’s hard to talk today. “It was too warm for these, when we weren’t — yeah.” And Connor’s never stopped apologizing for that, but Dylan still doesn’t like pointing out the time they didn’t talk.

Connor nods slowly, eyes on the road. “I guess so. But — I don’t know. I’m being dumb.”

And because Dylan will not allow Connor to be the only dumb one today, he opens his mouth, and words fall out. “This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he’s saying, and he’s not stopping himself.

Connor turns, looking at him. “What wasn’t?”

Dylan would truly love it if he could shut himself the fuck up, but he’s thinking about Noah and Jack, and he’s thinking about Mikey and Nate, hell, he’s thinking about Ryan and John, and if he doesn’t say something now, he’s going to hate himself more than he already does. “I wanted to do this right,” he’s saying. “I didn’t want you to get me back to the way we were. I mean, I guess I did, in the long run, because I really fucking missed you, but you weren’t supposed to get me back so fast.” And he stops, reminds himself to breathe, and goes on. “ _ Fuck.  _ I wanted you to hurt.”

Connor’s voice is shaking as he nods, as he says, “I am.”

“I wanted you to earn me,” Dylan says, almost too quiet.

He can barely hear Connor’s reply, but his voice isn’t shaking anymore when he says, “I’m trying to.”

And Dylan — he wants to laugh out loud, because, “Christ, Connor, you never lost me. There’s nothing to fucking earn. You have me.”

And there’s no false bravado there, because Dylan had spent all these months licking his wounds, Dylan had spent all these months waiting for Connor to come back.

The words hang there, ugly and big and Dylan really might cry, but Connor turns his whole body then, eyes wide with a small frown, the most genuine concern etched into every feature. “Were you going to tell me you loved me, the night you crashed the golf cart?”

There’s no point in lying, here. “Yeah,” he says, and he forces out the whole truth, because he’s pulled the car to the side of the road, and he’s not going to pretend that this is all fine anymore. “And I could have said it every night after, and it still would have been true.”

“Oh,” is all Connor says, just like that night, and Dylan’s crying now, but he’s not going to do this again, he won’t. He’s got to — he has to love himself enough for this. 

“I’m sorry this happened,” Dylan says. “I’m sorry I got hurt, and I’m sorry we stopped talking. And I’m sorry I’m in love with you.”

Connor looks fucking shattered, and Dylan’s heart breaks just a little. “Why didn’t you say it?”

Dylan shrugs. He’s never felt this small before. “I don’t know. I was scared.”

“God,  _ Dylan, _ ” he says, and he’s leaning over the car console, and he’s taking Dylan’s head in his hands, and he’s kissing him, and Dylan’s still crying, but, but now—

He pulls Connor closer, so close it hurts, because being apart doesn’t sound so realistic anymore. He needs Connor, just like he’s needed him every day since he met him, and he didn’t think he could have this. But these are Connor’s hands, slightly cold and a little sweaty, fingers knotted in Dylan’s hair, and that’s Connor’s breath on Dylan’s lips, and Dylan’s still crying.

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” Connor’s saying, and Connor’s crying too, and Dylan wishes there was a way to hold him even closer. “I would have said it back, I promise I would have, every day I almost did.”

“I love you,” Dylan says, helpless, because it’s the first time he’s ever said it, and nobody but Connor was ever gonna get those words. “I’m sorry I’m stupid.”

“Stop saying that shit,” Connor’s just staring at him now, holding Dylan’s head in his hands like Dylan’s something special, something precious. “You’re not.”

“We wasted so much time,” and this would be a lot cooler if there weren’t rivers coming out of Dylan’s eyes, but Connor kisses both of his cheeks, and Dylan  _ loves _ him, Dylan’s allowed to say it. “So much time, Connor, I—”

“There’s more time,” Connor breathes out, and kisses Dylan quick, and Dylan, fuck, Dylan loves him. “There’s so much time, and I’m never going to stop earning you, I promise, and we’ll be okay, I promise we will.”

“I missed you,” Dylan says, but Connor’s kissing his neck, so he’s probably rambling. “I missed you so much it hurt, and I always wanted to be with you, even if you didn’t want me like this, even if all you wanted was a friend, I wanted to be that for you, I would follow you anywhere, Connor, I would, all you have to do is lead—”

“I almost told you,” Connor says, and he sounds just as hopeless as Dylan did, “that night I drew on your hand, I almost told you everything. I want you with me, Dylan, I love you—”

And Connor was probably going to say something else, but Dylan can’t  _ not _ kiss him anymore.

  
  


The coffee goes cold, and they don’t eat much food. They kiss a little more, and they talk a lot, about college and the future and Mitch. Connor takes Dylan’s hand in his while Dylan talks, traces the heartlines on his hands like he’s planning. And every once in awhile, he’ll look up, and he’ll smile, small, and Dylan will kiss him, and Dylan will say  _ I love you _ , because it’s all he’s ever wanted to do.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, this took me a long time to write! I just wanted to make sure I got all that great, angsty energy into Dylan, and I wanted to make sure Noah Hanifin was treated with respect, but really I just had a lot of trouble picking out a title. (From, predictably, Hayley Kiyoko's "Gravel to Tempo," a song about being "on your own.")


End file.
